Excerpt
It had been a hell of a year for Adam Carlysle. That his wife took off with his business partner was the least of his troubles. The business partner, after all, was Cynthia Bloom - like his wife, a full-breasted ball-breaker - and he was no match for that kind of competition. Of course, the fact that Erin - that was his wife - convinced Cynthia to take off with all the liquid assets from their collectibles import business made things a little worse. Then Adam discovered that he probably had an inoperable form of cancer and, even allowing for a possible period of remission, had probably a year to live. That wasn't too good. But when his TV and his laptop gave up the ghost and the Ford blew its engine, that was it. With no car, he couldn't get out to meet the replacement part for Erin in his life, and he couldn't stay home and watch TV or surf the Net. Besides, B.C.Tel was making nasty noises about Erin's long distance bills. The City and the Bank would be after him next, he suspected. Erin had been supposed to pay the taxes, but no cheque had bounced from the account she'd cleaned out. It was almost enough to make a man so thoroughly pissed off he'd turn on the gas in the oven...if it hadn't been shut off already. But Adam Carlysle was made of stronger stuff than that. Oh, when the laptop quit, he shed a tear. Several in fact. But then he walked out of the house that he and Erin had shared (with Cynthia for the past six months, actually), walked straight over to Jack Blondell's, who was a Century 21 agent, and said, "Sell my house. Today." "Today?" Jack gasped. "Today or I get my pistol..." "For God's sake, man, I know things have been tough!" Jack was aghast. "But nothing's so bad you have to kill yourself." "Not me...you," Adam said. "Today," Jack nodded. "Cash only," Adam said. He took the cheque that Jack had got from the buyer to the bank and turned it into cash before anyone had a chance to have second thoughts and stop payment. Then he spent the evening at the Pan Pacific at the Japanese restaurant and watching the yachts in Vancouver Harbour from his hotel room window. Then in the morning, he took the ferry over to North Van and a taxi up the coast to where the marinas were less pricey. "What's that boat go for?" he asked the nautical type in the sailor's cap who showed him around. It had caught his eye probably more because of its name than anything else: Erin Go Bragh. He didn't actually know what "go bragh" meant in Gaelic but in Carlyslean it meant "go screw yourself." "That boat over there." he pointed "It's a ship," the N.T. corrected him. "Anything you can put a boat on is a ship. That one's a yawl." "How yawl?" Adam chuckled and the N.T. frowned. "Of course, if you don't use a sail on the mizzen, it's a sloop." "Of course. The Sloop John B. Wanna go home, cookie had the fits and all that. But you haven't answered my question. Cost?" "On time, twenty-five grand." "Cash?" "Twenty." "Sold. Say, how much you know about sailing?" the Nautical Type asked. "How much is there?" Adam shrugged. "You need wind of course. And a sail is nice. The sail's to catch the wind. And a steering wheel." "Tiller," the N.T. became officious again. "It looks like a wheel. I don't hold with all this jargon," Adam grumbled. "You know much about navigation? Like how to use this compass?" The N.T. pointed to the dial on the stand beside the "wheel." "I know it always points North," Adam said. "Useless to me." "How come?" "North is that way," Adam said, gesturing vaguely toward his right. "I want to go that way." He pointed straight out across the Pacific. "You don't know bugger all about navigation." The N.T shook his head in disbelief. "What's that matter?" Adam asked. "What do I have to know to get where I'm going?" "And where's that?" "Nowhere in Particular," Adam said. "Absolutely Nowhere in Particular." "I hope you find it," the N.T. said.